More babies will die from whooping cough in Britain unless vaccination rates increase to slow the spread of the infection, a leading expert has warned, citing low vaccination rates among pregnant women as a particular concern.
Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, a pediatrician and chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization, which advises the government, said too little vaccination “puts the most vulnerable – those too young to be vaccinated – at greatest risk”.
He said the only thing that could be done about the rising cases was to ensure higher vaccination rates.
He added: “But very important for this very vulnerable group, those too young to be vaccinated, are the vaccination rates in pregnant women.
“It is very concerning that these figures have fallen from a peak of around 75% of women vaccinated during pregnancy, to less than 60% today, and that is what puts these very young babies in particular danger .”
He said there have not been many cases of whooping cough for most of the past decade “because we are all protected by the high vaccination rate,” but once vaccination rates started to drop, “we see cases rising, just like the situation with the measles outbreak”.
He said: “The worrying thing is that if we continue to have high rates of spread and low vaccination rates, more babies will be seriously affected and unfortunately there will be more deaths.”
Figures for England show that 59.3% of pregnant women were vaccinated against whooping cough between October and December 2023, almost 16% less than the same quarter in 2016-17. London has particularly low rates, namely 36.8%.
Vaccinating during pregnancy helps bridge the immunity gap from babies’ birth until they can be vaccinated themselves.
Data for the period 2022-2023 shows that 91.8% of children have received a cough vaccine by their first birthday. Experts say this figure should also be higher.
Figures released on Thursday showed five babies in England died between January and the end of March after being diagnosed with whooping cough.
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So far in 2024, more than 2,700 cases of whooping cough have been reported across England, more than three times as many as all of last year.
Figures from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) show that 2,793 cases were reported at the end of March. This compares with 858 cases in all of 2023.
Dr. Gayatri Amirthalingam, a consultant epidemiologist for the UKHSA, said: “Whooping cough can affect people of all ages, but for very young babies it can be extremely serious. Our thoughts and condolences go out to the families who have so tragically lost their babies.”